Police escort 4 women from east London building

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London Metro Police

London Metro Police

Four women were removed by police from a block of flats in Barking, east London, on Sunday, a Reuters photographer on the scene said, as police announced a total of 12 people from the area had been arrested in connection with Saturday’s attack.

The four women, whose faces were covered as they left the building, were escorted by officers into the back of two waiting police vans and then driven away, the photographer said.

Seven people died in the attack in central London on Saturday night and 48 were injured.

British Prime Minister Theresa May called for a stronger response to Islamist extremism after three attackers drove a van into pedestrians on London Bridge and stabbed others nearby, killing seven people and injuring 48.

London’s Metropolitan Police arrested 12 people in the Barking district of east London in connection with the attack and raids were continuing there, the force said.

The attack occurred five days before a parliamentary election and was the third to hit Britain in less than three months. May said the vote would go ahead as planned on Thursday.

“It is time to say enough is enough,” the Conservative leader said in a televised statement outside her Downing Street office, where flags few at half-mast.

“We cannot and must not pretend that things can continue as they are,” May said, calling for a beefed-up counter-terrorism strategy that could include longer jail sentences for some offences and new cyberspace regulations.

Less than two weeks ago, a suicide bomber killed 22 children and adults at a concert by U.S. singer Ariana Grande in Manchester in northern England.

In March, in a attack similar to Saturday’s, five people died after a man drove into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge in central London and stabbed a policeman.

On Saturday night, police shot dead the three male assailants in the Borough Market area near London Bridge within eight minutes of receiving the first emergency call shortly after 10 p.m. (2100 GMT).

Eyewitnesses described harrowing scenes as the attackers’ white van veered on and off the bridge sidewalk, hitting people along the way, and the three men then ran into an area packed with bars and restaurants, stabbing people indiscriminately.

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Accounts emerged of people trying to barricade themselves in a pub while others tried throwing tables and other objects to fend off the attackers.

At an apartment block in Barking, a resident told Sky News he heard controlled explosions early on Sunday morning as police gained access to the building.

A Reuters photographer later saw four women being removed from the building, shielding their faces as they stepped into police vans.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

Islamic State, losing territory in Syria and Iraq to an advance backed by a U.S.-led coalition, had sent out a call on instant messaging service Telegram early on Saturday urging its followers to carry out attacks with trucks, knives and guns against “Crusaders” during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

Islamist militants have carried out scores of deadly attacks in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Asia and the United States over the past two years.

May said: “We believe we are experiencing a new trend in the threat we face as terrorism breeds terrorism.

“Perpetrators are inspired to attack not only on the basis of carefully constructed plots … and not even as lone attackers radicalised online, but by copying one another and often using the crudest of means of attack.”

She said the series of attacks were not connected in terms of planning and execution, but were inspired by what she called a “single, evil ideology of Islamist extremism” that represented a perversion of Islam and of the truth. She said this ideology had to be confronted both abroad and at home.

“While we have made significant progress in recent years, there is, to be frank, far too much tolerance of extremism in our country,” she said, urging Britons to be more robust in stamping it out in the public sector and in wider society.

U.S. President Donald Trump, taking to Twitter on Sunday, urged the world to stop being “politically correct” in order to ensure public security against terrorism.

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